Perpetually Confused
Coming out this month on the 27th out of early access.
I have.... mixed feelings. The game itself is pretty solid, but they got only a partial license for D&D 5e. This means they dont have some spells, and only 1 subclass from the core books per class. The later I've found an issue because their replacements for the missing subclasses are kinda bland.
Look at the fighter. The one 5e Subclass they have is the champion, widely regarded as the most boring options - all the abilities are passive. There's no battle master, instead what you get is the mountaineer, another subclass with entirely passive bonuses, focused on shields and forced movements. Then you have the "Spellblade" a replacement for the Eldricht Knight with strictly worse passives (Your attacks count as magical - the game throws magical weapons at you so it's an entirely useless buff).
And that's true for most classes, a lot of the replacements all go for passive abilities that no doubt were easier to code. Speaking of easier to code, the Bard, Barbarian, Druid, Monk & Warlock will not be in the game (And the Sorcerer will be DLC). Also no Half-Orcs, Gnome, Tiefling or Dragonborns. The full game will also cap at level 10, and there doesn't seem to be multiclassing.
The end result is characters you make feel kinda samey. Once you've made a fighter for example, there's little interest in trying to make another one. They are mostly identical with maybe 2 or 3 passive ability changed around. You don't get subclasses that play super differently like the Arcane Archer or the Battlemaster that 5e has.
That said the game itself is pretty good, though at least in the segments available to early access, I've found myself kinda wishing the game had more non combat stuff going. There's fun exploration to do (though unlocking flight or teleportation basically kills all the difficulty of reaching hard to reach areas). Conversations are kinda straight forward, checks are rare, though well implemented if you have insight you can judge what approach is best, and character backgrounds can matter. That said compare to BG 3 where you have all sorts of ways to use cool powers outside of combat, and dialogues are branching, with big choices to how you approach social stuff, Solasta feels way more combat focused.
I will say what shines is how your character's class, alignments and background lets you craft them a personality, and how they end up interacting as a result. It can be fun to see them bicker if you've given them contrasting personality traits.
Edited by Ghilz on May 5th 2021 at 7:23:49 AM
I think all problems with game are problems that are inherent with 5e in general <_< But I am strongly biased vs 5e xP
What the heck is a partial license? They can use the system but that's it?
Perpetually Confused
They went for the 5.1 ogl license which lets you use the mechanics, most of the spells, all the core book classes, and 1 subclass for each, some of the monsters.
They did not implement all the classes coz it was too much work for their team (Which is a reasonable reason for a small studio), but it does leave the game feeling a bit lacking in options.
Edited by Ghilz on May 6th 2021 at 9:42:39 AM
Welp this is released now, I can't play it yet though because of my GPU being dead and worldwide component shortage :p Plus I'd like to wait until sorcerer is out anyway
Aka that OTHER D&D 5e early access crpg, except this one is more homebrew D&D, more "create a party!" than "create a main character!", more indie and smaller budget :p
If you guessed based on trailer that plot seems to be about ancient reptilian shapeshifters, HOW the heck you guessed that